Hydraulic motor full of metal. ( Not my Grasshopper, different project)

[4570Man]

So I got a JD walk behind mower for free with a drive motor down. I decided with not much to loose I’d take the hydraulic unit apart. This is a self contained pump and drive unit which after tearing this down I believe is a terrible design. It’s full of metal. The only wear I notice is on those clutch disk and the bushing inside that round thing with the balls in it. This mower is probably worth $1000 tops in operable condition so I don’t foresee a new drive unit in its futures. I sorta think if it had a new clutch disk and a new bushing instead the ball think and all the metal cleaned out it might work. There’s no model number on the pump and this is probably 20 years old so finding parts might be hard. Even if this never cuts grass again I got a running 17 hp Kawasaki motor and a pretty good deck so it wasn’t a bad deal.

 

[dfkrug]

I also landed a "free" Deere mower, also Kawasaki-powered with HST. Mine is a lawn tractor, L176, IIRC. I won't crack it open til I get some better weather. It has a charging problem, minimum, so owner just bought a new one ($4000).

I like the look of that planetary gearset. Hope it is salvageable.

 

[4570Man]

This is an Eaton 778 pump. They’ve apparently been discontinued for years. I haven’t had any luck finding parts and I’m loosing hope of this ever mowing again.

 

[4570Man]

I haven’t been able to find any parts so far. I think if I had 2 clutch plates and 2 bushings for the pump rotary balls this would be salvageable. Unfortunately Eaton has discontinued the parts. The JD dealer only sells a complete rebuild kit at the bargain price of $1700. This mower isn’t worth $1700 and I doubt the other side is far behind from failure so I’d probably need both sides. So without finding a whole second hand unit or finding a different manufacturer parts this project is pretty much dead. BTW I still think this self contained unit is a terrible idea. It’s way more complicated than a separate pump and motor and it has wearable clutches inside the hydraulic system and the hydraulic system doesn’t have a changeable filter. I guess an automatic transmission isn’t much different but I don’t like those either.